Talk:Heraldry
Why does the article mix book and tv info without the proper "in the books" subsection?--Gonzalo84 (talk) 01:20, August 9, 2013 (UTC) :I only just started it and it is still very much a work in progress. I've been intending to make this article on Heraldry for so long that I realized it might be better to "get the ball rolling" by posting up what I could. Yes this TV/book stuff needs to be sorted out - however, I approached it from an "Out of Universe Perspective" anyway, given that I had to explain at the beginning how the real-life rules of heraldry work, Jim Stanes' involvement, etc. I think of it as more of a "Production" Behind-the-Scenes page. I don't know; but I thought it would be good to at least get a start on it.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 01:50, August 9, 2013 (UTC) Kingsguard In the show the Kingsguard doesn't wear white armor, and let's face it, they do have a blazon of sorts: the crown.--Gonzalo84 (talk) 17:04, September 20, 2013 (UTC) :They wear white enameled armor. The crown is not their sigil, just a design we've seen on armor - never a banner.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 17:15, September 20, 2013 (UTC) Heraldry wishlist What's heraldry that has not yet received an official TV series continuity version, which you would like to see in later seasons? (loosely, a wishlist might also extend to heraldry which "exists" in the TV continuity but which we've only barely glimpsed in crowd shots and don't have a "good" photo of yet). My short list: Heraldry we really need: *House Seaworth - a black ship with an onion upon its sails, on a grey field *House Velaryon - a silver seahorse rampant upon a "sea green" field *House Hightower - a silver tower with a red beaconfire, on a grey field **Technically exists in the Book of Brothers but never seen in closeup, so that it is illegible. *Bronn's personal sigil - a green, flaming chain on a smoking grey field. The design was to commemorate his role in the Battle of the Blackwater, where he earned his knighthood (after which he needed a personal sigil), but because the chain was cut from the TV continuity, it would have to be slightly different for the TV show - possibly a flaming arrow and green wildfire? Would be nice: *House Harlaw - a white scythe on a black field *House Caswell - a gold centaur with a bow on a white field. *House Rowan - a gold tree torn up by its roots on a white field *House Toland - a green dragon biting its own tail on a gold field (symbolizing that Dorne ran circles around the Targaryen dragons) *An official flag for the "Tiger" party of Volantis *An official flag for the "Elephant" party of Volantis "Exist" within the TV continuity but we need clearer images: *An official version of Brynden Tully's personal sigil (a black trout instead of a silver one) - well, we actually don't have an "official" version, but I made one easily enough for his infobox by simply modifying the normal heraldry. *House Jordayne - a gold quill, on a checked field of alternating light and dark green (barely glimpsed in the Season 4 premiere, but need a clean shot) *House Payne *House Manderly (probably coming in future seasons) *House Stokeworth - a white lamb holding a golden goblet, on a green background. Only example is Lollys's very intricate embroidery, though at least it is a very detailed embroidery. *Aegon II's personal gold dragon sigil (well, we did cobble one of these together easily enough by just recoloring the Targaryen sigil) *Rhaenyra's "quartered" heraldry (two Targaryen squares, an Arryn square, and a Velaryon square...but the Velaryons are one of the few we don't have!) Anything else?--The Dragon Demands (talk) 15:51, April 2, 2014 (UTC) : Ryswell, Dustin, and Hornwood.-- 17:21, April 2, 2014 (UTC) ::Well Hornwood does exist in the show, we just haven't have the best of angles on it. It's in the background at the tournament.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 17:23, April 2, 2014 (UTC) ::: True, but a good quality one'd be nice.-- 19:02, April 2, 2014 (UTC) Apart from the many Dornish banners seen in the Season 4 premiere, also need some good HD shots of the Martell heraldry clearly displayed in "The Mountain and the Viper".--The Dragon Demands (talk) 22:51, June 15, 2014 (UTC) : A clear view of Houses Lefford, Crakehall, Marbrand, Dondarrion and Tarth. BTW, i've never read Rhaenyra having a personal sigil.--Gonzalo84 (talk) 23:17, July 18, 2014 (UTC) ::I...obtained, digital copies of The Princess and the Queen and The Rogue Prince. TPATQ states that Aegon II's heraldry was like the regular Targaryen heraldry, but the red three-headed dragon was changed to gold (for his dragon Sunfyre the Golden). TPATQ only mentioned in passing that Rhaenyra's banners were "quartered" but didn't mention with what (was it like Maekar or something?). ::But then The Rogue Prince clearly explained that it was the normal Targaryen red dragon heraldry, quartered with the Arryn sigil (for her mother Aemma Arryn), and the Velaryon sigil (for her first husband, Laenor Velaryon...really because the Velaryons were among the primary members of the Blacks; plus Daemon had been married to Laena Velaryon and had two confirmed daughters by her). According to AWOIAF, when you quarter three sigils, the primary one (Targaryen) gets two diagonal quarters. There is even some fanart of this floating around on Westeros.org's forum (just by combining the other heraldry). But we don't have a TV-canon House Velaryon heraldry design. Despite being called "the Greens and the Blacks", their two factions didn't have actual Green and Black flags. The Gold Dragon flag was used by Green armies, Rhaenyra's quartered banner was used by Black armies (when Criston Cole's army is surrounded and killed, they see armies carrying the quartered flag of Rhaenyra).--The Dragon Demands (talk) 23:35, July 18, 2014 (UTC) Well, we didn't get any new heraldry in Season 5. My hopes for better Dorne heraldry were dashed. Ack. The only heraldry that was really in the "Needed" category was Velaryon, Hightower, Seaworth, and Stokeworth/Bronn personal sigil. The only one new heraldry at all this season was for House Stokeworth...in the form of a highly detailed embroidery on Lollys's gown, not official artwork of the "flag". Functional enough that I put it into their infoboxes and such, but still. --The Dragon Demands (talk) 00:51, June 22, 2015 (UTC) :We didn't even get Royce heraldry.--Gonzalo84 (talk) 06:57, July 9, 2015 (UTC) Standards for infobox heraldry As a wiki devoted to "the TV continuity", we have to use the specific heraldry designs that have been confirmed to exist in the TV version. There's more than one way to draw a lion, we can only use the version used in the TV series (though even within the TV series there are variants, we can only use these specific variants). This is why we can't load up heraldry we know to exist in the novels which hasn't appeared in any fashion in the TV series yet -- the biggest remaining example is that the TV series still hasn't produced a Velaryon sigil. We can't use fanart versions, or even "official artwork" of the Velaryon sigil from A Song of Ice and Fire calendars, etc. We've been "casting a wide net" as it were, by including heraldry which has appeared in the animated featurettes, or has appeared on in-universe books (House Selmy) - on the logic that it's better than nothing, but subject to change if later contradicted by the live-action series itself. Keeping this in mind, the heraldry samples we have come in two broad categories: 1 - Heraldry which we have very clear image designs for, often released as official wallpapers, infoboxes, etc. which are easy to recopy - primary example are all of the Great Houses: Stark, Lannister, Targaryen, etc. We don't need to know how to draw these on our own - freehand as it were, no one needs to know how to draw the complicated Targaryen sigil Freehand. This being the case, we should not attempt to make our own reproductions of the Targaryen sigil, no matter how accurate, through our own drawings. What we should do is recopy and resize into other image files, whenever possible. You know, copy and paste the red dragon symbol onto a black background of a different shape. Whenever possible, the infobox main image for "House Targaryen" should be a copy-paste of the official images they've provided - albeit copy-pasted onto the same colored background in a different shape (take the red dragon on a black square-shaped background and "cut" around it to make the black background shield shaped). 2 - Heraldry which "exists" in the TV version, but which we don't have clear images for. - There are a few pieces of heraldry which were "in the background" and we never got a screenshot-worthy live action image of, such as those at the Tourney of the Hand: House Crakehal, House Marbrand, etc. Or from tiny icons on the old HBO website. This category also generally includes artwork from the Histories & Lore cartoons (one or two were clear enough to copy-paste, most were not). In this case, we'll bend the rules a little by making our own facsimiles, which should attempt to closely match and approximate the "in-universe version" as best as possible. For example, you have to make sure that a sigil has the exact same number of stars that appear on the sigil in the Histories & Lore. A major rule is that even if we don't have a clear version of the sigil, keep the unclear image as an example, do not replace it. For example, the House Selmy page - the sigil was only briefly seen in an on-screen book's artwork. The infobox shield is an approximation we made because the screenshot isn't clear enough to copy-paste -- but we NEED to always keep the screenshot we're basing it on within the same page, as a citation for "this is what we are basing this on". Also, BE CAREFUL about uploading new versions of heraldry under the same file name. If it's only a slight change to make it less blurry or the colors sharper, keep the same name. But if it's a significantly different design, give it a new filename. Otherwise it's harder to keep track of the changes in the article history page. Some heraldry has multiple variants, and sometimes the heraldry and lore has been slightly different (i.e. the Whent heraldry), but even the Lannister heraldry has had multiple variants. We will judge which is the "default" one on a case by case basis, but usually the that is most clear and used most frequently. Other issues: Shield shape: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/User_talk:Xanderen?diff=prev&oldid=235694 http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/User_talk:The_Dragon_Demands?diff=prev&oldid=235712 "Xanderen is willing to convert the rest of the shields into the ones with pointy bottoms while I think we should just revert back to the original, triangular shape since the triangular ones are already uploaded." After researching through this, I think we should stick with the more triangular ones instead of the ones with pointy bottoms --''purely because'' this is closer to the shape shields actually have in the TV show: their curves are convex, not concave at any point: Examples: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/File:House_Whent_sigil_Season_2_Harrenhal_Histories_and_Lore.png http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/File:Gregor_Clegane_in_armor.png :Using the triangular shape would not be "sticking with it"... it would be changing it. Again. I was under the impression that the current one was meant to resemble this. Yes, many of the shields could be simply be reverted back to the triangular shape, but not all of them. The ones I created over the weekend would need to be scrapped and redone from scratch. I don't mind making alterations when required, but this is too much. (is anyone else willing to put the work in?). At the moment all of the shields use the same shape, which has been in use for months now! There is nothing to be achieved by changing them for fiftieth time. And if you're arguing for in-universe accuracy then surely the Stark one should be round? Xanderen (talk) 07:25, March 15, 2016 (UTC) :If you do ultimately decide to switch back the old shape, these are the shields that will need to be created from scratch: *Morrigen *Cerwyn *Dayne *Dondarrion *Royce *Corbray *Hollard... likely others. Just curious, is anyone else willing to do this? Xanderen (talk) 13:46, March 15, 2016 (UTC) One shield size I agree with Ser Shield McShield's assessment that we only need one shield to use and it will auto-format into smaller sizes. This may need some fine tuning. But try to use one standard file and we'll assess if any problems arise from that. --The Dragon Demands (talk) 01:49, March 15, 2016 (UTC) :If you're dead set on scrapping the smaller shield I won't try and dissuade you. But if there are technical issues as a result (misaligned sigils) I won't be fixing them. Xanderen (talk) 07:25, March 15, 2016 (UTC) Assessing all recent heraldry additions (not necessarily all on the wiki): *Selmy - this is the example now - make a facsimile, but never remove the example screenshot from the page. *Crakehall - retain screencap; also is your Crakehall brown? It seems purplish. *House Swyft - needed screenshot *Tarth - ...I think the suns and crescent moons need to be bigger? Or would that make them too large? Don't know. Not important. *Hornwood - do the infobox images match (they seem to) *Gaunt - needs a screenshot (I have it in a folder, will upload later) Ones with some specific issues: *House Caron - we're currently using an approximation because an official image file has never been made, but we do have clear images of their banners. ...I think that our approximation is "zoomed in" too much: it's roughly three nightingales wide, but the TV banner seems to show four nightingales on each row. This needs to be refined with a little copy-pasting. *House Dondarrion] - The current version turned out a bit chubby, I like the older version - can that just be re-shaped? http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/File:Dondarrion_sig.png *House Royce - I think the current approximation doesn't use the exact same rune symbols that appear on the official version. Consult the detailed screencaps on "Old Tongue" article. Pages with good approximations needing no work: Whent, Baelish, Marbrand, Swann, Blackwood, Braken. --The Dragon Demands (talk) 02:06, March 15, 2016 (UTC) ---- Responses *Dondarrion - I can make another version of this, but the original was too small/poor quality to be reused. It also only vaguely resembled the in-universe design. *Caron - Admittedly, this was a result of changing the shield shape. Reverting back to the old file will give you the results you want, or, if you choose the current shield (you should) I can alter the dimensions of the nightingales. *Royce - Yes, the Runes are the same. There is no way to arrange them in the same order as they appear in the show, as the only points of reference we have are square, not shield shaped. *Selmy - I don't know what you're referring to. I've never edited the House Selmy page. *Crakehall - I didn't create the original artwork. I can adjust the colors if you wish. *Hornwood - Again, I didn't create this artwork, but it looks passable to me. The moose's face is slightly chunkier than the in-universe version. I've changed the moose slightly to look more the in-universe one. Please review the changes to the file and leave feedback. *Tarth - Corresponds to the in-universe version, but I can make alterations if you wish. *Gaunt - Done. Whoa...you're right, they are drawn as pointed in the Book of Brothers. Well in that case we should do it that way, too I guess. I'll reply to more of this tonight I have to finish up some other stuff before I head out.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 15:50, March 15, 2016 (UTC) Heraldry that needs reviewing *Cerwyn *Redwyne *Umber *Karstark *Tarly *Manderly *Dayne *Forrester *Whitehill *Mormont *Mallister *Lefford *Morrigen *Reed *Hollard Please strike off those you find acceptable, and make comments for improvement on those you don't. Xanderen (talk) 10:42, March 15, 2016 (UTC) Heraldry icons with shield rims A few months ago the idea was proposed to add in new heraldry mini-icons that look more like actual shields, with metal rims. I now think this wasn't a good idea: casual readers might not realize they're supposed to look like this. Some sigils actually include a different-colored border around the rim. Are we presenting the Targaryen sigil as "a red dragon on black" or "a red dragon on black with a silver rim"? Now obviously most know what the Targaryen heraldry looks like, but what about more obscure sigils? Casual readers would only get confused. We had one or two other custom ones which I don't think worked too well...only one I can find at the moment is the new City Watch infobox icon, now currently with a metal rim anyway: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/File:Gold_Cloak_shield_icon.png I think we should switch back to just solid gold, for their cloak; the current version looks too much like a shield made of planks of wood. --The Dragon Demands (talk) 02:14, March 15, 2016 (UTC) Custom heraldry The other custom ones I've seen are: *Smallfolk - A plain wooden shield *Brotherhood Without Banners - Patchwork design from the viewers guide. *Wildlings - Mammoth skull, also from the guide. *Maesters - A maesters chain. Not a shield, just a transparent icon. *Slavers - A gold harpy, again no shield. *White Walkers - I have no idea... A blue... thing! *Faceless Men - Valar Morghulis coin. *Hand of the King - The hands badge... not sure why this was needed. *Iron Bank - The "seal" of the Iron Bank. Tycho Nestoris is the only character that uses it, so I don't see how it's necessary. *Faith of the Seven - The seven pointed star on a beige shield. *Lord of Light - The fiery heart. These religious symbols are not considered heraldry in the Westerosi sense of the word, so using them as such is misleading (in my opinion). *Second Sons - The broken sword. This should be kept, but needs recreating to match the current style/standards. There may be others that I've missed. There are also some personal sigils that are canon: Ser Duncan's tree and star, the gold dragon of Aegon II, the four dragons of Maekar. :I agree. The shield rims icons are deeply ugly, and should be scrapped entirely. Xanderen (talk) 07:25, March 15, 2016 (UTC) ::Established personal heraldry variants are just normal "heraldry", i.e. Ser Duncan, treat those normally.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 03:04, April 5, 2016 (UTC) Technically the different sub-groups of the Ghiscari slavers used different variants: *Old Ghiscari Empire - a harpy with thunderbolts in its talons *Astapor's Good Masters - a harpy with open manacles in its talons *Yunkai's Wise Masters - a harpy holding a whip and an iron collar in its talons *Meereen's Great Masters - a harpy holding nothing in its open talons Of these, the only one to explicitly appear on screen was the Astapor harpy with manacles/chains, otherwise they've just said "a harpy" in general (particularly as seen on their statues). Still...the harpy is clearly their "symbol", so stay the course and just continue to use the harpy sigil for the slave-master faction/Sons of the Harpy. Sellsword companies that use their own war banners explicitly have their own "heraldry", so yes the Second Sons have established heraldry. ...what's wrong with the current style/standards of the Second Sons heraldry? Whenever possible we should try to use heraldry seen in the live-action episodes; only resorting to video game or animated videos if we've got nothing remotely useful from the live-action stuff. The Iron Bank doesn't have a sigil in the novels but clearly has been established to use that hourglass with hands symbol in the TV series - so yes treat that as their heraldry. Might as well continue to use the special Valar Morgulis coin logo for the Faceless Men. Similarly, stay the course with the maesters, using their chains as their symbol. ...I don't think we should have a symbol for the smallfolk at all. By definition, they don't have heraldry. In principle, yes the Faith of the Seven and Lord of Light have symbols so we'll use them. Separate issue: the Faith Militant symbol is different in the novels, and the TV show hasn't established if they use the same "Seven pointed Star" symbol that the main "Faith of the Seven" does, or a specific variant of it. This is easier on the book wiki where they use distinct sigils. Need to look into this. Oh the White Walker symbol? Someone got the idea to use the symbol on the Night's King's chestplate and use it as their symbol throughout. If you think it's a stretch I'd be in favor of removing it, could go either way. Major issue are groups which in universe have no heraldry, but which the HBO Viewer's Guide uses icons for: the Night's Watch and the wildlings. Jon and Ygritte's discussion made it quite explicit that the wildlings don't have heraldry. But they use the mammoth skull symbol in the viewer's guide. The Night's Watch, meanwhile, only uses ALL BLACK on their shields, the rejection of heraldry. The idea of using a black crow on black is just what the HBO Viewer's Guide does. Viewer's Guide gave the Brotherhood Without Banners a patchwork symbol to show how rag-tag they are...what the heck, might as well use it, they don't have another symbol. Hand of the King...technically gains a hand as their symbol. However his clutters up the infobox a lot for people like Tywin, I'm not fond in retaining it. Therefore: *'Stay as they are:' Iron Bank of Braavos, Maesters, Ghiscari slave-masters, Faceless Men. **Also Brotherhood Without Banners (at the moment it has that metal rim though, need to remove that and go back to previous version). **Second Sons (update to new version? Use live-action shots, not video game; live-action preferable) *Smallfolk - really shouldn't have a symbol at all, I vote. I'd rather we delete the wooden shield thing, it is misleading. *White Walkers - we're not even sure if that was "a symbol", it's just something that was taken from their armor shape. Maybe they don't have heraldry in the human sense. I'd vote to delete that for now. *Hand of the King - while technically true, we'd only use it on characters like Tywin or Tyrion and I fear would end up cluttering the infobox. *'Groups which have icons in the Viewer's guide:' the Night's Watch and wildlings. Frankly I vote that we stick with the storyverse, that the wildlings simply don't have heraldry and the Night's Watch only uses solid black. People who watch the live-action episodes and never even heard of the viewer's guide would only get confused. I mean they're for ease of use but they're not story-accurate. *'Religious organizations': In principle, yes I think the Lord of Light's fiery heard and the Faith's Seven-pointed Star should be used like heraldry. **Separate question about the Faith Militant's sigil, will make a separate section to discuss that... --The Dragon Demands (talk) 03:39, April 5, 2016 (UTC) I agree with all of the above. On the four shields up for debate (I think only these four), my vote is: Night's Watch - Keep the current version with the raven even though it is not used in the show. I just think it looks good. But if we decide to change it to all black, please make sure to upload it as file name Night's-Watch-Main-Shield.PNG. That way, the new version will automatically be disseminated through-out the whole Wiki without any of us having to update each page separately. Please note that this is why I have been pressing to use one version of the shields through-out the wiki - it will make all of lives way easier if we decide to change any of these shields in the future. The new version just has to use the same file name as the old version and it will be automatically referenced on all of the pages. White Walkers - I think they should have a symbol/shield since they are clearly an army. I don't know if the symbol currently being used is the best one but until there is a better one proposed, my vote is to leave it be for now. Widlings - My vote is to keep the mammoth skull. The widlings banded together as an army so they should get a shield even though mammoth skull shield is not used in the show. The widlings are a distinct group and that should be noted somehow. Maybe the best way is to use the mammoth skull BUT in a different shape so it doesn't look like heraldry. Just like we have symbols such as the chains for maesters, the coin for the Faceless Men, make the mammoth skulls with blue background on a circular shield so it is looks different than the standard pointy heraldry for all the houses with established coat of arms. Smallfolk - The wooden shield should NOT be used because they are not a distinct group. They are just the random civilians so they shouldn't get anything. Hand of the King - drop the symbol. The Hand is a title and office - we don't give Kings a crown, or Lords something else - we just note the offices a person holds elsewhere on the page. Regards Ser Shield McShield (talk) 18:21, April 5, 2016 (UTC) Viewer's guide symbols? The Night's Watch and the wildlings explicitly don't have heraldry in the storyverse. The Night's Watch only uses solid black, the wildlings use nothing. The HBO viewer's guide, for convenience, uses a black crow on black as an icon for the Night's Watch, and a white mammoth skull on purple for the wildlings. Should we use these icons on the wiki? On the one hand, like the viewer's guide, they conveniently show faction allegiance. On the other hand, they don't actually exist within the story as presented in the TV series or novels. Personally I could go either way, I defer to everyone else's judgement.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 15:40, April 5, 2016 (UTC) ---- Just re-interating what I said above: Night's Watch - I like the version with the crow simply because I think it looks good. But if we make a change, just make sure to upload it as the same file name as the current version and then none of us will have to update any of the pages where it is used. Widlings - Keep the mammoth skull with blue background but use a different shape just like we a coin for the Faceless Men or a chain for maesters. That way we can denote the widlings as a distinct group but not use the pointy shields since the widlings don't use a coat of arms. Regards Ser Shield McShield (talk) 18:25, April 5, 2016 (UTC) Faith of the Seven vs Faith Militant heraldry The books have very different heraldry for the Faith Militant vs the main Faith of the seven. The TV series just seems to use the same seven-pointed star, but I'm not sure. We've been using the sigil that appears for Faith Militant characters on the HBO Season 6 Viewer's Guide. Should we call that the "Faith Militant" symbol or just "the Seven pointed Star" symbol? I.e. should we retroactively use it for characters like Septa Mordane who were never members of the Faith Militant? It's not as if the main "Faith of the Seven hierarchy" opposes the "Faith Militant" at this point as a rival sub-faction. While I'm on the subject, the Faith Militant symbol we currently use as the upper-left point of the star cut off - can this be fixed by mirroring the right-hand side's point? --The Dragon Demands (talk) 15:49, April 5, 2016 (UTC) Bastard heraldry We also need to know what you want done about this. Are we scrapping them or sticking with. Consistent standards need to be applied here as well. Xanderen (talk) 07:25, March 15, 2016 (UTC) What's the current situation? I thought we were using reversed colors for bastards. Which specific ones are at issue here? Don't use the red bend sinister, though, unless it's someone who specifically used it in the books (and even then it hasn't been really mentioned in the show just yet).--The Dragon Demands (talk) 02:53, April 5, 2016 (UTC) Banners This also requires attention. Some locations use banners, some use shields, some use squares? All of varying (sloppy) art styles. Personally I think shields should be used throughout. Xanderen (talk) 10:42, March 15, 2016 (UTC) :Any chance we can get back to this today? Xanderen (talk) 08:28, March 20, 2016 (UTC) :Personally I'd vote to just use shields for everything, but the other Admins need to weigh in too - I can't change that unilaterally. That's all I've got to say on it though.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 02:51, April 5, 2016 (UTC)